Homeless - 31

Hello,

It rained earlier this week for nearly an entire day and I ended up nearly sleeping that entire day away. It was pleasantly cool and the parking lot remained sparse with little traffic; a much needed rest. The nights have been much cooler and drier than the past several days and I've been resting well. There has been a couple of days that I had to wear a thin, long sleeve pullover for a bit - still went barefoot though.

I went by the post office to renew my 30-day cycle and was informed by a new employee that they only could hold mail for 10 days and that whoever was doing this could lose their job. I explained that this practice had been going on since May '07 with no problems and gave her a short version of my situation and added that the card that I've been submitting for this process had a 30-day hold parameter in the instructions with no other delimiting factors. She summoned her supervisor and he adhered to her point of view but I must grant that he had a more polished skill set of customer service skills. The situation was like I was talking to a couple of people where one said the sky wasn't blue and the other was saying there was no sky. Don't worry; I remained cool and calm. Clearly, the employee indoctrination process the postal service employs for new hires ingrains in them a type of logic that is beyond the ken of mere mortals. Before leaving I told the supervisor I'd be back with an address toward the end of the week, giving him time to find out what happened to the last month's mail. At one time, I had thought of applying there and was strongly urged not to; something about not wanting to read about me in the paper 'going postal' was the rationale. I'm glad I listened to their advice. That type of environment would drive me nuts.

I have a feeling that the birds in one of my 'pausing ' places have learned to recognize Black Thunder. Over the past couple of weeks when I would transfer a pack of crackers from its' original store-bought plastic/waxy container to a resealable plastic bag in a effort to prolong freshness, there would be some parts of the crackers left over that I deemed unworthy to carry forward. By the way, the reason that some crackers are cheap (a 4-pack box costs less than $1) is because they don't hold together as well or as long as the ones that cost $2. Anyway, the leftovers would be thrown in the parking lot less than 2 meters from my truck. I thought the birds might benefit from the refuse...and they do. Now, it seems that they gather around at that place when I'm there and I end up throwing some food product their way. When I catch a good deal on a sandwich ($1 for a huge sub), I pick the cheese off and throw it to them. They don't seem to fond of cheese though. More often than not, they'll look and peck at it and then look at me as if saying 'Is this it?'. And the discarded piece of cheese goes unattended. Part of the small flock is a crippled bird that I didn't see before. It had one foot missing, half a leg actually, and one of its' wings looked odd. It must have happened recently because the right leg wasn't strong enough to support its weight when it stopped to feed. It would sit down for moment to consume and then hop to another location and it seems braver than the rest in approaching the crumbs close to the truck. It feeds on the banquet with the rest of the brethren and when it was time to leave, it flies off with the rest of them. At least it retained one of its' important abilities.

When I go to the quiet pool, I usually have a large Styrofoam cup full of iced Dr. Pepper and it doesn't take the ants long to home in on it. One day I bought a lunch and had the idea that if I put a piece of food a couple of feet away they would go for it instead of the DP; they did. So when I eat there, I put aside a portion for them and they leave the DP unmolested. I noticed over the course of several days that they have gotten bigger so the hive must be doing better. They can strip the remaining meat off a chicken leg to the bone in a couple of days. Maybe they and their kind will remember me when they take over the planet, which they will, and instead of feasting on my whimpering carcass, they'll let me and BT alone. Probably castrate me though to reduce the probability of human repopulating...and retribution. So it might not me a bad idea for you to start forging relationships with the jungle friends in your section.

I called about a couple of part-time jobs that I spotted in the want ads but found out that they were a considerable distance from my 'range'. Oh well, the process goes on...

Later,

David